Irish Time

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Margaret Thatcher after coming to power in 1979, worked ceaselessly to create an administration that she could completely trust. The Prime Minister became paranoid about leaks. She believed any disclosures of covert operations, were detrimental to government performance. She went to great lengths to prevent them, for example in 1987 she sanctioned banning a BBC series on Secret Society, fearing that it might divulge information on bugging and ‘dirty tricks’ in British Occupied Ireland.

Her government called for injunctions around the world, against Peter Wrights’s revelations about Britain's secret service activity. His book was available in most good shops.Thatcher thought that her government had a firm grip on unauthorized disclosures, with a host of sanctions against curious reporters, whistle blowers and judges. Attorney General Sir Patrick Mayhew declined to prosecute RUC officers, implicated in the Shoot-to-Kill controversy, for fear their trials would raise questions, about the activities of leading double agents in the PIRA leadership, particularly anything which would compromise a planned SAS murder, of unarmed IRA volunteers in March 1988 in Gibraltar.

Thatcher created an inner cabinet of Foreign Secretary Howe, Foreign Office, David Mellor, Permanent Under Secretaries F. O.’s Tim Eggar, a few Whitehall and Cabinet Office officials with Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong, to ensure its covert actions were on the same page as the Joint Intelligence Committee suggestions from reports by GCHQ, MI6, MI5, and FRU. It was the way that Mrs Thatcher unprecedentedly operated, at the expense of the intelligence services, and the Cabinet.

Margaret Thatcher was a control freak, totally addicted to special operations and consequently, had a need to know every detail of secret information which went way beyond that of everyone else. According to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, she was besotted with everything about intelligence, particularly the Force Research Unit’s Military Intelligence Source Reports (MISRs) in British Occupied Ireland. We can be certain she was fully aware of the details of the assassination of Lawyer Pat Finucane.

It was on Margret Thatcher's watch, that Human Rights lawyer Pat Finucane was murdered, which set the culture in motion, for the subsequent murder of a second human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson. We can be certain the British Government's cover-up will continue, until she joins her peadofile, necrophilliac, friend Jimmy Savile in Hades.

Thatcher’s day will come – Finucane

It is getting close to the 24th anniversary of the murder of Human rights lawyer Pat Finucane. On the eve of her husbands 15th anniversary, an interview with his wife Geraldine Finucane revealed far more about his death than any of the investigation or reports commissioned by the British.

The wife of murdered North Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane has said the day that former Tory PM Maggie Thatcher takes the witness stand at a full public inquiry into his killing is drawing nearer.

And she says the international judge appointed by Tony Blair to look into the controversial murder has told her the British government must publish a true reflection of his findings.

As pressure mounts for the truth into the notorious and brutal murder of Pat Finucane, Geraldine Finucane told the North Belfast News that nothing less than an “expansive” inquiry was needed to unveil the murky and deadly involvement of the RUC Special Branch and the British Army’s Force Research Unit (FRU) in murder. And she said the political establishment as well as the British military must take the stand at an inquiry and be called to account for their actions.

“It has always been regarded that Margaret Thatcher was the top of the chain of command. An inquiry would establish that. All the people on that chain are accountable and it has always been our aim to get to the truth,” she said.

“She was a hands-on prime minister and liked to know everything first hand,” said Geraldine Finucane.

“She was involved in everything and where Northern Ireland was concerned – particularly with the death of her close friend Airey Neave and Lord Mountbatten – she liked to be briefed directly. She like this so she could be sure of things.”

Next Thursday marks the 15th anniversary of the February 1989 death of the 39-year-old solicitor. He was gunned down by the UFF in his home in Fortwilliam as he sat with his family eating dinner. A UDA gunman pumped 14 shots into Pat Finucane in a British army-led loyalist murder campaign which peaked in the late ‘80s and 1990s.

Just weeks prior to the murder Douglas Hogg, a junior minister in the Thatcher government, used parliamentary privilege to name solicitors whom he claimed were “sympathetic” to the IRA.

To this day Douglas Hogg still stands by his comments.

A huge number of nationalists – most of them civilians – on whom the FRU had prepared files and handed over to the death squads, were from North Belfast.

Relatives of those targeted were often the innocent victims of the loyalist gunmen when they came to call.

An army checkpoint set up on the Antrim Road on the night of the murder was withdrawn to let Pat Finucane’s killers through the security force cordon.

Geraldine Finucane said she wanted to know “exactly what policy was carried out” at every level.

That policy led to the British state murder of hundreds of its own citizens and allowed loyalist killers like South African gunrunner Brian Nelson to kill with impunity.

Geraldine Finucane said any inquiry would also expose the policy of the British government at that time.

As Judge Peter Cory adds his call to the long list of legal and human rights groups for a judicial probe into one of the most controversial murders of the conflict, the Finucane family say it all went right into the heart of Maggie Thatcher’s cabinet.

“From the minute Pat was killed there were obvious questions to be asked. The Douglas Hogg statement had been made prior to Pat’s death and we accepted this meant more than just what was being said (by the RUC to loyalists) during interrogation in Castlereagh. There was government involvement,” she said.

But she revealed that it was only gradually that the layers had been peeled off in the aftermath of her husband’s murder to reveal more details of a specific drive from the heart of the British cabinet led by Maggie Thatcher.

“Everything was slow in the beginning and it was quite a long period of time before anything happened. But that gave me time to get over Pat’s murder. It allowed us to have a routine and just to settle ourselves. Then Nelson was arrested and the (Stalker) investigation came about. The momentum only then started to gather.

“Then all the Non-Governmental Organisations and all the people involved were all up and running about collusion and the family just grew together. We as a family and the NGOs just grew as a family at an even pace. I always think after Rosemary Nelson was murdered, her family was just thrown into things at the deep end, but for us it became part of our lives.”

Many of the world's most prestigious NGOs including Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation of Human Rights and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights have issued reports on the circumstances around Pat Finucane’s murder.

And other respected NGOs, especially the Committee on The Administration of Justice (CAJ) in Belfast and British Irish Rights Watch in London, agreed also of the compelling need for an independent judicial inquiry.

Geraldine Finucane said she was convinced the day was coming for an inquiry, but fears that when one is eventually launched the British government will seek to have its range limited in order not to expose the heart of the truth. Another threat to the truth is the marathon and ongoing Stevens III inquiry.

“There is something massive that has been hidden and the people involved do not want it to come out. There are only two names out there in the public domain such as Gordon Kerr, the head of the FRU.

“There are lots of other people still in charge and running the FRU in the intelligence community, these people are still around. It’s in their interests for this not to come out at the minute.”

At the moment the British have been accused of stalling tactics over its decision not to publish the Cory report citing legalities and interests of national security.

That is despite the Irish government immediately publishing the Canadian judge’s findings into killings in the Republic which were blamed on Garda collusion with the IRA.

“Things have been going on for far too long and it’s still continuing and the British government still won’t allow a public inquiry,” said Geraldine Finucane.

“But I intend to push on. We are still intent on forcing the publication of the Cory report.”

But what if the British decide to edit out the key evidence in the Cory report citing national security as the excuse?

“Judge Cory has told me that if they publish and it is not representative of the report then he will tell us what was taken out. He said to me ‘I will say whether it is a reflection of what I wrote’. He has written the report avoiding all the sensitive areas.”

Geraldine Finucane said she was not surprised that Peter Cory has found grounds for a public inquiry.

“He is a very intelligent man of great expertise. He has worked in the Canadian Supreme Court. The evidence is what I knew about and other people, like the United Nations special rapporteur and the US Congress – they all called for an inquiry into the evidence as presented.

“I thought he (Cory) should find that. He is an independent man of integrity and he was not going to be got at by anybody. Although I didn’t feel the necessity for him to be appointed, he adds to the list of eminent people who have called for an inquiry.”